This application claims the benefit of Korean Application No. 2002-8170, filed Feb. 15, 2002, in the Korean Industrial Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated hereby by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to an apparatus to manufacture a collimator, and more particularly, to an apparatus to combine a filter to a collimator.
2. Description of the Related Art
A collimator is a device used for optical communication, which transforms a light inserted through a light source into a parallel ray. The collimator is usually employed as a component in a variety of equipment including optical communication equipment, semiconductor equipment, etc.
A filter may be combined to an end of the collimator. The filter is provided to filter light inserted into a fiber formed in the collimator.
However, conventionally, the filter has manually been combined to the collimator. For example, a worker typically picks up the collimator and the filter with a tool such as a tweezer and coats either of the collimator or the filter with an adhesive such as an epoxy resin. Thereafter, the filter is combined to the end of the collimator and they are left for a certain period of time.
Consequently, the conventional collimator is thereby combined with a filter through a manual operation. Thus, production efficiency is remarkably reduced and product reliability decreases accordingly. In addition, a long period of time is consumed to produce the collimator, thereby reducing productivity.
Accordinigly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus to combine a filter to a collimator to allow the filter to be easily combined with an end of the collimator.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows and, in part, will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.
The foregoing and other objects of the present invention are achieved by providing an apparatus to combine a filter to an end of a collimator, thereby, filtering light inserted into the collimator. The apparatus includes a filter supporting part to support the filter, and a chucking holder provided in a part of the filter supporting part to chuck the collimator. The apparatus includes an elevation part to elevate the chucking holder toward the filter supporting part, and at least one heating part provided at one side of the filter supporting part to heat a region of contact between the collimator and the filter.
According to an aspect of the invention, the chucking holder includes a fixed block formed with a seating groove in which the collimator is seated, and a movable block having one end rotatably combined with one side of the fixed block, and the other end detachably combined with the other side of the fixed block to supportedly seat the collimator in the seating groove.
According to an aspect of the invention, the apparatus further includes a locking member to prevent the movable block from being detached from the fixed block when the movable block is combined to the fixed block.
According to another aspect of the invention, the filter supporting part includes a picking holder to pick up the filter, and a rotation part to support the picking holder and rotate the filter at a predetermined angle relative to an axial line of the collimator.
According to another aspect of the invention, the heating part includes a ultraviolet heating part disposed radially outside the filter supporting part and the filter is placed in the center thereof.
According to another aspect of the invention, the apparatus further includes an illuminating member provided in the one side of the filter supporting part to illuminate toward the region of contact between the collimator and the filter.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, the apparatus includes at least one camera provided at the one side of the filter supporting part to photograph the region of contact between the collimator and the filter, and an image displaying part connected to the camera to display an image photographed by the camera.
According to an aspect of the invention, the apparatus further includes a horizontal moving part to move the elevation part horizontally.
According to an aspect of the invention, the apparatus further includes a light supplying part to supply the inserted light to the collimator, and a light receiving part to receive the inserted light filtered by the filter.
According to an aspect of the invention, the apparatus further includes a controlling part to automatically control the elevation part, the horizontal moving part, the rotation part, the heating part, the illuminating member, the image displaying part, the light supplying part and the light receiving part.